Neither, a ninja is actually hiding in the Spartan's shadow waiting to kill them both but then all three get killed by a pirate who swung down on a rope with a sword in one hand and a knife in his teeth
Spartans were way better trained as being royalty who should have been exclusively occupied with warfare in addition to their own propaganda that they were invaders and that the helots would betray them first time they could.
Practicing on live helots, being barred from politics until you were old enough and the puritanism all played into making them the most formidable.
I think that despite spartan losses, they almost always had the edge in the training and morale for the average citizen.
Sparta feels like if the Navy seals lead a state. The Shogunate feels more like a long lived junta with feudalism.
Technically we are talking about Spartans not hoplites. The Spartans had bows, javelins, and slings too. But ranged weapons aren't great against steel armour. And their bronze armour would have caved like butter if hit by basically any of the steel weapons and ammunition the samurai used.
Do y'all remember that show "Deadliest Warrior" where they would use "science" (read: an excel spreadsheet) to determine which of two kinds of historical soldier was best? It was fake AF but it was super fun to watch. I loved the little fights they put at the end of each episode.
Also OP, to answer your question, it depends on the circumstances. 1v1 it's probably the samurai since they lived into the early industrial age and therefore had access to way better armour and weapons (and also nutrition) than the bronze age Spartans. But if it's a 30v30 formation battle, the Spartans probably take it because spear and shield tactics are OP as heck.
Yeah I loved how they got a trauma surgeon to come look at the ballistics gel dummy and be like "yeah he fuckin dead" after they like sliced a gnarly chunk out of the face or something haha.
Yeah Spartans were all about the phalanx, whereas samurai would often train and fight 1v1 even on the battlefield in my understanding. I would agree with your assessment.
There was an Xbox arcade game of it and it was super unbalanced. The spartan and the native American both had a weapon you could throw that would be a one shot kill but was super rng. We used to just spam it at the start of the fight and restart it no one died.
Are we talking 1 on 1? I'm no expert, but didn't Spartans usually fight in groups with interlinked shields? So perhaps that type of shield wouldn't help much in this situation. I guess whoever could get a jab in between the armour of their opponent faster. My money would be on the samurai, but I think it would be a close fight.
Yeah I remember reading that samurai usually fought on horseback with bows. But in close combat I'm sure they could put up a good fight with their swords.
